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PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD FOLDS

Brian Grainger

Last week it was announced that Personal Computer World magazine (PCW) was to cease publication. Its last issue will be August 2009, available in UK shops on June 18th. This is the end of an era.

I am not sure whether PCW was the first PC magazine in the UK but it was certainly the best. Before then, I used to go to my local library to read Electronic Times International (ETI) to get my fix of computer news. These were the days of the Altair and Nascom when enthusiasts would build their own computers from components and program them using machine code. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were tinkering with producing a programming language to run these machines, which eventually came to be Microsoft BASIC. This was the era when 'personal computer' really meant that and not an IBM PC compatible. Happy days! It was in ETI that we in the UK learned of a new breed of computers that were ready built and ready to go. The Apple, the TRS-80 from Radio Shack and the Commodore PET.

When they appeared in the UK it was the Commodore PET that sold the most and I got mine in April 1978. One month later, in May, the first issue of PCW appeared. PCW helped the fledgling hobbyists to get the most out of their computers and to allow them to communicate with each other. There was no internet then. I had my Commodore PET and through PCW I learned of a student in number theory who wanted someone with a home computer to run his programs to assist his studies. I'm interested in number theory too, so I became his data processing facility.

PCW has a special place in the heart of ICPUG. It was a letter in the September 1978 PCW, from Norman Fox and Tom Turnbull, that asked Commodore PET owners who wanted to form a group to contact Norman. From this beginning IPUG was formed, which eventually became ICPUG.

PCW went from strength to strength and when the IBM PC appeared its focus turned to it, much as the general populace did. However, unlike some of its competitors, its target audience was not solely business. It catered for the hobbyist, the more serious hobbyist, as well. I used to extract the tutorial and help sections after I read the magazine. I still have them and I bet if I reread them I would still find some interesting technique that I have forgotten.

PCW introduced cover floppies, then cover CDs and then cover DVDs, along with most magazines, and in the pre-internet age this was the way to get your software. Again, I still have many disks with programs that will run like lightning on today's machines.

As interest in Linux became apparent PCW extended its coverage to that OS. In particular, the cover DVD would include some Linux distros in its content. This is what draws me to purchase PCW today, although I would try and purchase at least 1 PCW per year irrespective.

Obviously magazines have, apart from each other, the internet as a competitor. Personally, I believe there is a place for the written word as you simply cannot read a screen like you can paper - and I don't want to keep clicking my mouse as I eat my cornflakes. Whether the internet is the source of the demise of PCW is questionable. PCW still has healthy circulation figures compared to its competitor magazines. What they don't have is the advertisements, which have reduced as the recession takes hold. There is also a story on the web that the parent company were encouraged to leverage with debt in the good times, so they may well be paying the price now that money is hard to come by.

What is certain is that PCW will be missed. It was a good source of well written, intelligent material that allowed readers to make the best of their computers. If and when Windows 7 becomes widely available then one source of help for the Windows community, sadly, will be missing.

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